By Charles Ho, Principal and U.S. Patent AttorneyBarron & Young Intellectual Property Limited

June 18th, 2013

Challenge:
Designate important emails and documents
with status types to group, find and circulate
them more quickly.

Solution:
Implement the Worldox Categories feature to
label files with both text‐based and graphical
descriptions.

Result:
The firm's employees are quickly trained to use the
Categories feature. They assign categories to files
upon opening them so that they can easily
identify files in lists in a visual way. Icons
affiliated with Categories depict which action items
are necessary for tagged documents and emails.

"We find Worldox very useful and indispensable
in our daily document management as it
possesses the unique Categories feature. It
allows us to quickly obtain the most updated status
of each document and email saved in Worldox,
so that we would know which ones we need to
follow up with and which ones we need to handle
immediately." ‐ Charles Ho, Principal and U.S.
Patent Attorney, Barron & Young Intellectual
Property Limited

The staff members of Barron & Young Intellectual Property Limited in
Hong Kong had been using the Worldox document management
system (DMS) for several years. They were seeking a way to annotate
emails and documents with statuses that indicated, "follow-up",
"urgent", "notes to file", and "special instruction from client". Charles
Ho, the Principal and U.S. Patent Attorney at Barron & Young, sent an
inquiry to his Worldox contact to determine the best way to denote
documents with certain conditions. His request inspired the Worldox
development team to make enhancements to the long-standing
Libraries feature.

The legacy Libraries feature in Worldox was valued by existing
customers for many years. Libraries offered folder-based file
relations that assisted users with labeling certain documents to
facilitate grouping files in a list. Worldox developers decided to
redesign the Libraries feature and re-launch it as Categories. The
Categories feature makes it possible for users to quickly identify files
in a list in a visual way. Color icons and text-based descriptions offer
a new way to tag and discover related files.

Users can assign Categories in a number of ways. A common way is to
assign them directly from a Worldox file list by right-clicking a file
under the "Categories" column header. Upon doing so, a list of
categories appears where users can make their selection(s). There is
also a menu option to Assign to Categories and an optional custom
toolbar bar button for users who prefer those modes. Users can also
specify in Worldox Preferences whether or not to assign categories
during the operations of Open, Save, Move and Copy if desired.
Categories are visible in file lists in the "Categories" column, which
can be added if not shown by default. It can also be sorted on or
filtered with the Tags tab at the bottom of the file list. Depending on
the size of the column, it will always list the Category icon(s) and as
much text as possible. Users can assign multiple categories to one
file.

Worldox enables users to create and edit Public, Personal and Folder-
based Categories. The Folder categories are the same as the old
folder-based ones that were offered in the Libraries feature. These
Categories are only viewed within the specified folder. Users can
create Personal categories that only they can see. Public categories
are used globally by all users within the organization using Worldox.

Upon learning about the new Categories feature, the IT department
at Barron & Young rolled it out to users within just a few days. Staff
members were quickly trained to use it and they immediately created
additional useful categories. Supervisors improved their review
process by marking documents and emails with categories such as "to
be reviewed", "reviewed", "approved", "ready to be sent" and "sent to
client".

Users of the Categories feature at Barron & Young are diverse when it
comes to preferences for the types of Categories to use. Some prefer
to use only existing Public or Folder-based categories, while others
also employ Personal ones. One thing they all agree on is that
categories provide more advantages when it comes to locating
documents in a file list with a quick glance. All users have their
Worldox Preferences set so that they can select a category upon
opening a file. They also use the Tags tab at the bottom of the
Worldox file list so they can click a Category name to display
matching results in the file list.

Worldox users at Barron & Young unanimously agree that the
Categories feature has streamlined the process of cataloging their
documents. It’s an easy way to tag documents and emails to more
easily circulate them for review and collaboration. Icons designated
to categories assist with illustrating tasks and action items that have
already been performed or still need to be done for certain
documents and emails. Categories have been a welcome addition to
the workflow at Barron & Young. They have made review processes
more efficient and have met the expectations of Worldox end users
throughout the firm.

Charles Ho affirms, "We find Worldox very useful and indispensable in
our daily document management as it possesses the unique Categories
feature. It allows us to quickly obtain the most updated status of each
document and email saved in Worldox, so that we would know which
ones we need to follow up with and which ones we need to handle
immediately."